Still Missing CO - Suzanne Morphew, 49, Chaffee Co, 10 May 2020 *arrest* #97

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In her heart, I think she knew one of them might not be alive. Suzanne would be dead or she would have defended herself causing him harm. She suggested a restraining order. There’s no hiding Barry’s hot temper. Spoiled brats always have temper tantrums. She saw it lots. I hope she is brave enough to speak up. But I doubt it.
Well, I don't think she would have been thinking that one of them was dead, JMO. More likely, she thought that they were arguing for hours, with maybe yelling and sobbing. And even "only" that would be particularly sad on Mothers Day.
 
BBM
At that moment it was a missing person's case. Not a homicide. moo
Exactly!
Extremely rare in Salida, much more experience in trail and river mishaps than murder
I've thought about this and tried to think of different scenarioes and came up with a few.

1. She was just trying to find out where he wanted to take her and he didn't respond... but maybe she wouldn't have went hiking either way.

2. There were public places to "hike" maybe in town or paths that were not remote like I think of when I think Colorado and hiking.

3. It was Barry somehow texting from a second device or logged in to her iCloud (I admit I am not tech savvy and don't understand how this can be, but I've seen it referenced as being possible).

4. It was Barry trying to set a plan in motion and then he decided against the hiking plan as a way to get rid of her.

Side note: I listened to a podcast recently about a couple that went hiking and the woman "fell" to her death. The husband set up a romantic getaway weekend and surprised her. They went hiking and it was pretty far out. Turns out he had hiked there previously and scoped it out. This all came out after and it turned out he pushed her. I wonder if Barry had listened to a podcast on that story and was kicking the idea around?
Harold Henthorn?
 
We know through Suzanne’s list of grievances that she was both afraid of driving with Barry in the vehicle and being a passenger where he was driving. Slamming brakes and threatening to jump out of car. Suzanne was smart enough and maybe even aware to realize that DV is a grave risk when leaving the relationship. She drove separately to meet Barry at Tailwinds and likely she drove her RR to Moonlight Pizza to be in control. The fact that she sent the girls the pic of Barry awaiting their order Moonlight is heartbreaking because she likely thought she was safe only meeting up with him and returning home separately. She wasn’t safe. Whether or not something happened that night after they both returned home we may never know but she was smart enough to suggest meeting him somewhere to hike on Saturday which he didn’t respond to thankfully. I think he was hoping to win her over enough to lure her somewhere more remote to do the deed. Heartbreaking. IMO
Ebm spelling again lol
 
Somehow I can't believe that Barry had been planning to kill Suzanne for several days. Only hours. JMO

I think it's possible he had been thinking about it for a while. I think it's been in his mind and maybe not exactly what he would do, but something was off for months and he knew it. I think he cleaned it up very well or he did it in a way that there was no mess and somehow I don't imagine a person snapping and then being able to think of all the things he needs to get rid of. I think he thought about it and had ideas of how he could do things.
 
YES! I tried scrolling back to see which podcast it was I was listening too. It was in the last few weeks I heard it and it would have been one recently put out by the podcast.

SA Grusing investigated and testified in that case as well.

The court permitted introduction of evidence related to Henthorn misrepresenting what he did for a living and his success at it, his controlling and isolating behavior in his marriages, as well as previous incidents involving Henthorn and his wives that demonstrated an unusual pattern of circumstances surrounding their deaths. Both suffered the accidents that led to their deaths in the presence of only Henthorn and the accidents occurred in remote areas of Colorado where cell service was weak and help would take a long time to arrive.

Before the long fall from a rock ledge that led to her death on a hike Henthorn had last-minute surprised her with to celebrate their 12th anniversary, Henthorn's second wife had suffered an earlier unusual accident where he asked her late at night to check a light bulb below a deck and he claimed he had "accidentally" dropped from the deck above a heavy piece of lumber that hit the back of her neck as she bent down to do what he asked. She suffered lasting injury from that accident. The first wife died when the Henthorn's vehicle fell off an unstable boat jack that had been used to lift the vehicle to change a tire. Henthorn claimed his wife had been reaching for lug bolts that spilled beneath the car when he threw the flat tire into the back of the vehicle and the vehicle fell off the jack and crushed her. Both wives lives were well-insured.
 
SA Grusing investigated and testified in that case as well.

The court permitted introduction of evidence related to Henthorn misrepresenting what he did for a living and his success at it, his controlling and isolating behavior in his marriages, as well as previous incidents involving Henthorn and his wives that demonstrated an unusual pattern of circumstances surrounding their deaths. Both suffered the accidents that led to their deaths in the presence of only Henthorn and the accidents occurred in remote areas of Colorado where cell service was weak and help would take a long time to arrive.

Before the long fall from a rock ledge that led to her death on a hike Henthorn had last-minute surprised her with to celebrate their 12th anniversary, Henthorn's second wife had suffered an earlier unusual accident where he asked her late at night to check a light bulb below a deck and he claimed he had "accidentally" dropped from the deck above a heavy piece of lumber that hit the back of her neck as she bent down to do what he asked. She suffered lasting injury from that accident. The first wife died when the Henthorn's vehicle fell off an unstable boat jack that had been used to lift the vehicle to change a tire. Henthorn claimed his wife had been reaching for lug bolts that spilled beneath the car when he threw the flat tire into the back of the vehicle and the vehicle fell off the jack and crushed her. Both wives lives were well-insured.
Interesting that now we have a missing wife and some loose nuts and bolts from a recent blade replacement. Ob and barefoot prints in the bob cat. I’m going to look into this other case. Thanks for the info.
 
SA Grusing investigated and testified in that case as well.

The court permitted introduction of evidence related to Henthorn misrepresenting what he did for a living and his success at it, his controlling and isolating behavior in his marriages, as well as previous incidents involving Henthorn and his wives that demonstrated an unusual pattern of circumstances surrounding their deaths. Both suffered the accidents that led to their deaths in the presence of only Henthorn and the accidents occurred in remote areas of Colorado where cell service was weak and help would take a long time to arrive.

Before the long fall from a rock ledge that led to her death on a hike Henthorn had last-minute surprised her with to celebrate their 12th anniversary, Henthorn's second wife had suffered an earlier unusual accident where he asked her late at night to check a light bulb below a deck and he claimed he had "accidentally" dropped from the deck above a heavy piece of lumber that hit the back of her neck as she bent down to do what he asked. She suffered lasting injury from that accident. The first wife died when the Henthorn's vehicle fell off an unstable boat jack that had been used to lift the vehicle to change a tire. Henthorn claimed his wife had been reaching for lug bolts that spilled beneath the car when he threw the flat tire into the back of the vehicle and the vehicle fell off the jack and crushed her. Both wives lives were well-insured.

Wow I didn't know this about Grusing! Interesting!
 
I found the podcast I was listening too.

Crime Salad recent episode "The black widower: Murder of Toni Henthorn" There are 2 parts to that one.

When searching, I also realized I've listened to Going West's episode also. It is from Dec 10, 2019 and titled Harold Henthorn.
 
Full Timeline – Find Suzanne Morphew

This is the website from @sk716 It has the AA and a lot of great info very easy to sift through!

Thank you, @sk716 has done a wonderful job getting all of this together. I just wanted to check on a couple of things from the AA. Will dig around on the web a bit, I know it's here somewhere. lol
 
I have wondered about the plastic bag episode. Is it really common for LE to not have bags for evidence or searches? They went in the house specifically for something that was hers -- but without something to put it in? Were they perhaps just trying to get BM out of the closet/room? Maybe shell or doorframe damage spotted? Speculative, open questions ...

Also, fwiw, the daughter's boyfriend said on the original, raw footage, body cam video that she had several outfits but thought she just had the one helmet.
I really don’t know how common it is for LE not to have bags for evidence or searches, but at the time this was considered a missing person’s case not a homicide, so that might have something to do with it. Good point about perhaps wanting to get BM out of room after spotting door frame damage or shell, I could see them wanting to get a closer look at those things when BM was out of the room.

Thanks for the clarification that MH said SM had several outfits. When the officer told BM at the front door before entering the home, I heard it as the officer told BM they needed something SM wore today, and my takeaway was the officer was testing BM. As in, officer already had the knowledge from BM telling them he last saw SM at 5am sleeping in bed so would have expected BM to either show/give him what she was wearing in bed that morning when he last saw her, and/or for BM to have said something to the effect she slept in the nude and that he didn’t know which biking outfit she put on/wore that day. I think either of those things would have made sense to the officer. Because BM didn’t do/say either of those things, he failed the test leading the officer to be suspicious that BM went right to the closet and pointed to the biking shorts on the floor because not only should BM not know what she wore biking that day, they obviously also shouldn’t be there because they’d still be on her wherever she was (with her abductors, sex traffickers, etc.), which is why I said whoops! thinking BM messed up and didn’t think that one through. Unless the officer meant they were going to let BM go in just for today similar to what Cindizzi mentioned, and wanted BM to show them something that SM wore recently, and not what she specifically wore that day. If that’s the case, then the pointing to the biking shorts on the floor, ok makes sense. I don’t know if it makes sense the way I’m explaining it, and it’s also totally possible I misinterpreted the exchange at the door between the officer and BM. I don’t know that it’s hugely important in the grand scheme of things as gosh knows there’s more than enough evidence of BM’s provable lies and inconsistencies, but I am going to watch and listen to the body cam video footage again on high volume and with my earbuds in this time lol.

As far as the helmet, I was referring to the missing flyer put out early on which was not an LE sponsored flyer. It was the flyer BM put together with TN? Daughters? help that had “last seen wearing this helmet” on it. My point was, noone, not a soul, reported seeing SM on a bike nor wearing any helmet that day because she never went for a bike ride that day. Dead people don’t ride bikes and the “last seen wearing this helmet” BS was just more of BM gaslighting the masses and trying to push the phony bike ride narrative.

IMHOO

#FindSuzanne
#BringSuzanneHome
#JusticeForSuzanne

eta-clarity, punctuation
 
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I really don’t know how common it is for LE not to have bags for evidence or searches, but at the time this was considered a missing person’s case not a homicide, so that might have something to do with it. Good point about perhaps wanting to get BM out of room after spotting door frame damage or shell, I could see them wanting to get a closer look at those things when BM was out of the room.

Thanks for the clarification that MH said SM had several outfits. When the officer told BM at the front door before entering the home, I heard it as the officer told BM they needed something SM wore today, and my takeaway was the officer was testing BM. As in, officer already had the knowledge from BM telling them he last saw SM at 5am sleeping in bed so would have expected BM to either show/give him what she was wearing in bed that morning when he last saw her, and/or for BM to have said something to the effect she slept in the nude and that he didn’t know which biking outfit she put on/wore that day. I think either of those things would have made sense to the officer. Because BM didn’t do/say either of those things, he failed the test leading the officer to be suspicious that BM went right to the closet and pointed to the biking shorts on the floor because not only should BM not know what she wore biking that day, they obviously also shouldn’t be there because they’d still be on her wherever she was (with her abductors, sex traffickers, etc.), which is why I said whoops! thinking BM messed up and didn’t think that one through. Unless the officer meant they were going to let BM go in just for today similar to what Cindizzi mentioned, and wanted BM to show them something that SM wore recently, and not what she specifically wore that day. If that’s the case, then the pointing to the biking shorts on the floor, ok makes sense. I don’t know if it makes sense the way I’m explaining it, and it’s also totally possible I misinterpreted the exchange at the door between the officer and BM. I don’t know that it’s hugely important but I’m going to watch and listen to the body cam video footage again on high volume and with earplugs in this time lol.

As far as the helmet, I was referring to the missing flyer put out early on which was not an LE sponsored flyer. It was the flyer BM put together with TN? Daughters? help that had “last seen wearing this helmet” on it. My point was, noone, not a soul, reported seeing SM on a bike nor wearing any helmet that day because she never went for a bike ride that day. Dead people can’t ride bikes, and the “last seen wearing this helmet” BS was just more of BM trying to push the phony bike ride narrative.

IMHOO

#FindSuzanne
#BringSuzanneHome
#JusticeForSuzanne
In hindsight, Barry grabbing the ziplock bag immediately gave LE his fingerprints and DNA.
 
If Barry wanted to take Suzanne hiking for an accidental push (were thry communicating both by phone and text?), Suzanne may have thwarted his plan simply by insisting on two cars. He may have envisioned taking the older RR and no phones, going together and coming home alone. Two vehicles would ruin that.

We don't know how many times and ways Suzanne may have been in the cross hairs.

JMO
 
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In her heart, I think she knew one of them might not be alive. Suzanne would be dead or she would have defended herself causing him harm. She suggested a restraining order. There’s no hiding Barry’s hot temper. Spoiled brats always have temper tantrums. She saw it lots. I hope she is brave enough to speak up. But I doubt it.
If MM2 seriously thought that Barry might have killed her mother, I wish she would have said to him "What have you done?! What have you done to her?!" when she saw him. Would have saved heaps of trouble.
 
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